About a week after I lost my Mother, I lost a good friend--not to death, but to finding out he wasn't who I thought he was. I had always assumed that, because he was rational about most other things, he would be rational about everything. But this time, when I met up with him he had been drinking and on the way back to his apt, he started spewing hatred...nigger this, nigger that. Turns out he's a complete racist.

He did such a good job up to that point of keeping it under wraps, I never suspected for the whole eight months or so that I knew him---or thought I knew him.

He also threatened to rape me that same f ed up night. I knew he was just blabbering and didn't mean any of it, but to say to someone who's told you he's a rape survivor "Your going to end up getting fucked before the night's over whether you like it or not." is just not cool at all.

I guess I was in some kind of denial about his being such an asshole. I had had clues..but ignored them. He just comes across as such a sweet, sensitive person. And it's so incomprehensible how someone who knows so well the crap that a gay person goes through for being gay...how he can turn around and spew the same kind of irrational hatred. I'm just so depressed. I need a friend right now...like the one I thought I had till just a week ago.

Sans LogosMemberMaleSurvivor
Registered: 05/31/03
Posts: 5793
Loc: in my own world in pittsburgh,...

sorry to hear about this fresh loss in your life, blue. wham-bam. first your mom, now this. they say things happen in three's. i wish i could do more than just sent a note of condolence. i guess one good thing is that you are losing poison in your life. that's always a good thing; but, too i realize a big piece of this pain is connected to the loss of yourself because of the abuse. just a quick google search brings up this, so i will leave it with you:

Sans LogosMemberMaleSurvivor
Registered: 05/31/03
Posts: 5793
Loc: in my own world in pittsburgh,...

blue i thought about htis a bit more on my way to work. i wanted to thank you for sharing your pain, beacuse it really helped put me in touch with my own thoughts and feelings around the issue of friends and not being able to share with others.

Thank you Sans. I've heard those stages of grieving before. I kind of think it's a little different for everyone though. I guess personally I can only relate to one or two of those stages,...but another person might say "Wow! I'm even following them in order!"

It's funny though that there has been no anger..not so strange in the case of my Mother passing, but it seems like where my ex friend is concerned there should be a LOT of anger. Maybe I just haven't got to that stage yet. I think the denial and depression are the two I can definitely say I've been through..and still am.

Well here's an update..I spent the whole day thinking about this guy and spent half an hour talking to a friend about him who's opinion I respect, and finally decided to call him. I asked him if the racism I heard from him that night was just the booze talking or if he actually buys into the ideology. I guess he did go through a racist period in his life but he says that is in the past now and that it was just the booze "making him stupid."

I think I can accept that and even the rape threat is something I can see as just his drunken attempt at turning himself on. It's still a f ed up thing to say to a rape survivor though.

I'm still trying to decide what to do with this relationship even though I'm sure most people reading these posts would have a hard time understanding my indecision. I guess it really takes a lot to get me to the point of rejecting someone I care about. Maybe I'm just not ready to loose another person in my life right now. Or maybe I'm just still in the first stage. (Denial..the river in Egypt)

Sans LogosMemberMaleSurvivor
Registered: 05/31/03
Posts: 5793
Loc: in my own world in pittsburgh,...

hey blueshift, good job. it shows a couple of admirable things about your character:

that you are able to set boundaries, and establish terms of your endearment. that you are acquiring the tools to work through your own initial fear response and proceed with healthy vigilance and compassion.

also, it is good to be able to leave your options open and explore other possibilities; that does not necessarily equal denial. it seems you are cultivating your instincts for systematically proceeding through the healthy steps of intimacy and working toward building trust.

yea, keep the conversation open, give him a little more rope, and see if he hangs himself with it. LOL

Thank you! I tend to second guess myself too much and not trust myself, so it's good to hear some reenforcement. Especially about important issues like this...I always feel like I'm over my head and screwing things up even worse, but when I get to run it by someone else who seems like an intelligent rational person then I can usually either feel better about my decisions or at least see where the flaws are.

Yeah, giving him more rope and seeing what he does with it is pretty much my idea exactly. His rape threat doesn't bother me that much I guess, 'caus for one thing, he was drunk, and for another, he's someone I've already selected to have sex with, so even if he did rape me (which I just can't see him doing), it wouldn't be the worst thing I've been through. I kind of think he likes to feel like there is force involved as part of his turn on but he doesn't seem like the type of person who would actually do it.

He has shown that he can respect my boundaries..at least when he's not drunk, and he doesn't get drunk very often. I haven't bitched at him for the drunken threat and I'm not going to. I think in his mind at the time he was just talking dirty and wasn't thinking about the implications of his words.It did creep me out, but I know that reaction was more a product of my past abuse than anything else. I will remind him though if he starts drinking again, to remember not to intentionally trigger me.

New update. I went to see this guy again last night and we went out together, had dinner, went to a museum and then to the local gay bar. At the gay bar he told me he was going out for a smoke. I went with him, though I don't smoke, and he was talking to some friend he met there. I felt kind of awkward and just stood around...close enough that I could hear some of the conversation but far away enough that I could easily imagine them both thinking that I was too far away to hear any of the conversation.

I do have good ears though. My friend had his back to me so I didn't hear his part of the conversation, but whatever it was my friend said to his friend, I did hear his friend say in response, "No, too in the gutter. Karma comes back and bites you in the ass." Then he said in a louder voice "Well, you could put a hood on him and starve him...feed him kitty food."

He looked at me then and it seemed obvious they were talking about me. He said this last part loud enough that I didn't even feel like I needed to pretend I didn't hear, so I said "Hood? Kitty food?" and my friend turned to me and said "You like fancy feast?"

Earlier at his apt he had a porn video running on his computer, which by itself wouldn't have bothered me, but this one had the word "rape" in the title.

I just feel like I've seen enough now. I'm not certain of anything, and I tend to want to second guess myself because I know my history makes me prone to some paranoia, but I really do feel like I'm just getting too creeped out. Maybe it's just in my head, but I really feel like this friend has rape fantasies and I just don't feel safe with him.

Well, so now I am just stonewalling him..not taking his phone calls or returning his messages. I really don't feel at all good about handling it that way. I talked about it a little in healing circle this morning but I'm still feeling upset about the whole thing.

Mostly because I just don't know how much of my paranoia is just paranoia and how much is real. What I do know for sure is that he made a rape threat (whether he was serious at all or not,) and that he was talking with some friend I didn't know about putting a hood on me and starving me and making me eat kitty litter which by it's self, in addition to the rape threat he made the time before seems like a pretty damn good indication that he is not taking my survivor issues seriously.

Actually the more I think about it as I'm typing this, the more I feel like he shouldn't be at all surprised if I just cut and run at this point. If he really wanted to keep my friendship, he wouldn't be saying things that make me feel unsafe no matter how drunk and stupid he gets. I mean if he gets so stupid when he gets drunk that he says things like that, then he shouldn't be getting drunk.

I feel like if I'm going to walk out of his life at this point, then I owe him an explanation, but on the other hand, it seems like nothing I could explain to him is anything he shouldn't have figured out on his own based on his own behavior.

Seems like a smart guy like him could figure out that a rape survivor doesn't need someone making comments, serious or not, about raping and abusing him. What kind of retard says things like that to/around a rape survivor? I sure as hell wouldn't.

I think that any friendship that makes you feel unsafe needs some distance in it ... but the easiest solution here is just to ask, sit down and clear the air, tell him how you feel and set your boundries, if he's a friend he will accept them, if not he'll walk right over your boundries and you will know how much he respects you and your friendship.

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